Motorists navigate around a parked car along Northeast 81st Avenue on Sept. 28. Residents say the street has become a popular parking spot for residents of nearby apartments. (Amanda Cowan/The Columbian)Photo Gallery
Developers can’t build apartments fast enough to put slack in Vancouver’s tight housing and rental market. But while new housing complexes create new opportunities for renters, they can put unintended pressures on surrounding residents.
Residents of Northeast 81st Avenue just off of Northeast Burton Road in the Ogden neighborhood know that firsthand. They say limited tenant parking in the Lewis Ridge apartment complex is causing a spillover into their side street in sometimes problematic ways.
“It’s a super major issue,” said Johnny Richardson, who lives in and is president of the Oxford House on the corner of Northeast 81st Avenue and Northeast Burton Road. “And it’s all from those apartments over there,” he said, referencing the Lewis Ridge apartment complex across the street.
The Lewis Ridge complex was built in 2013. It consists of 112 units and 175 parking spaces. Each apartment is allowed up to two cars. Officials from the company that owns it declined to comment. According to its website, it’s operated by Pinnacle, a privately held, Texas-based property management company “with a portfolio of 147,000 units” in the United States.
While Lewis Ridge is by far the closest to Northeast 81st Avenue, it’s just one of several complexes along Burton Road between Northeast 18th Street and Northeast 86th Avenue.
Michael Merrill, parking services manager for the city of Vancouver, said his department received 17 parking complaints, two of which resulted in citations, in the general vicinity of Northeast 81st Avenue and Northeast Burton Road in about the last six months.
Residents along Northeast 81st say parking along their street isn’t a constant issue throughout the day, but worst overnight and early mornings.
Richardson said he’s seen some near misses between cars turning right off of Northeast Burton Road and the cars parked on the Northeast 81st Avenue side of the corner and visibly behind the tall trees on his lot. He’s also had to deal with commotion from revelers outside around 2 a.m.
“The biggest thing is the trash,” said Dan Reed, who lives across the street from Richardson. Bottles and cigarettes are a common sight on his lawn. While doing some yard work recently, Reed found broken automobile glass scattered from the gutter, up the curb and into his grass. A few abandoned cars have even been towed from alongside his house.
To add to the issues, the street doesn’t have sidewalks, so when the shoulders are lined with cars, it can force the students who walk to Peter S. Ogden Elementary into the roadway.
“I tell people I’d rather have kids walk on my lawn than walk down the street,” Reed said. “If the city would do it, I’d love them to put a sidewalk here.”
The apartments and 81st Avenue sit kitty-corner from one another. Reed said it’s common for people who park along his street to drive around the small concrete divider in the center turn lane of Burton Road and against traffic for a short dance to enter the apartment complex.
“My wife and I wonder when there’s going to be an accident,” he said.
Tracy Weedman, chair of the Ogden Neighborhood Association, said neighborhood parking is a sensitive issue that affects people differently, depending on which side of the situation they’re on. The neighborhood association has met to discuss the parking issues as well.
“You can’t tell people you can’t park on a public street,” he said. “My contention is they need to do it legally.”
The tenants of the apartments shouldn’t be faulted for parking on a public street so long as they’re following the rules. If anything, Weedman said, he sees the situation as a byproduct of high rents, tight housing options and sluggish wage growth.
“With rents being where they are … my personal opinion is I bet people are having to bunch together in apartment-style living, and consequently, there’s way more cars,” he said.
Weedman also said people from the association have reached out to the apartment complex, but “their concerns landed on deaf ears.”
He said members of the neighborhood association have also brought their concerns to the elementary school.
Patricia Nuzzo, communications director for Vancouver Public Schools, said parents of Ogden elementary students haven’t come to school officials about the situation. However, “One of the staff members at Ogden knew about it from the neighborhood association voicing a concern,” she said.
She said students living in the apartment complex, or anywhere south of Burton Road, can be bused to school due to the potentially dangerous walking conditions around the area.
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